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The government's focus now should be on the measures that can be taken in the short term for managing the effects of the energy crisis, Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca said on Wednesday, adding that in the long run, apart from the solutions determined together with Romanian producers, projects are being discussed to develop modular nuclear power capabilities together with American partners.
The Prime Minister, accompanied by Energy Minister Virgil Popescu and member of the Governing Board of the European Institute of Technology & Innovation Razvan Niculescu, met with representatives of Last Energy, an American developer of innovative solutions for small modular reactors with an installed capacity of 20 MWh. A demonstration project will be carried out on the Mioveni platform in cooperation with the Nuclear Energy Technologies Corporation (RATEN) to complement Romania's already announced nuclear investments, the government informed.
"Today I met with an American company interested in developing energy production capabilities, modular nuclear capabilities. After this morning's meeting, there is a prospect that in two years, together with the Pitesti-based Nuclear Research Institute (ICN), this company will be able to finalize a demonstrator and depending on the results, subsequently move to a higher production for us to be able to increase our energy independence to the established target. Until then, we must focus on the energy independence measures we can take in the short term in order to be able to manage the effects of the energy crisis," Ciuca said at the beginning of the government meeting.
The Prime Minister also mentioned that on Tuesday he had several working energy meetings, both within the governing coalition and with representatives of the Energy Ministry and managers of the companies in the field.
"At the Oltenia Energy Complex there is the possibility to set into operation in a relatively short time, more precisely in May, another turbine and thus add another 300 MWh; by resuming works on the Iernut investment we should have an additional 210-plus MWh by the end of the year, which helps us a lot in all our endeavors to increase our energy production," said Nicolae Ciuca.
